Perfect for cooking meals for the whole family, or a big batch of something for the freezer, the Risotto Plus multi and slow cooker from Sage is a slow cooker, rice cooker and steamer all in one compact machine.

Add all the ingredients into the breadpan and cook for an hour at the Jam setting. Since my bread maker’s shortest jam program time was 1hr 30mins, I set a separate timer for an hour to keep an eye on the sauce. Add the rice and turn up the heat – the rice will now begin to lightly fry, so keep stirring it. After 1 minute it will look slightly translucent. Add the vermouth or wine and keep stirring — it will smell fantastic. Any harsh alcohol flavours will evaporate and leave the rice with a tasty essence. If you just want a slow cooker and/or a rice cooker, no, as it’s hard to justify the Sage’s price tag. Instead, look at more affordable options like the Lakeland Brushed Chrome Family Slow Cooker or the Tefal 8-in-1 Multi Cooker (the latter is especially good for cooking with a time delay).Sauces and soups are an easy leap to make from jam. The machine will simply mix the ingredients while heating them, so you may need to puree the final contents at the end of the process for a smooth consistency, but chances are you’d have to do that with a sauce or soup cooked on the stove anyway. Yet the eggs were entirely edible, if a little overcooked. As such, it’s a decent solution if you don’t have a pan or a stove handy, or need to make eggs for a large group of people. Cake is probably the most common item besides bread that you can prepare in a bread maker. The program will usually be named “Bake”, “Bake only”, or just “Cake”. In this mode you remove the kneading blade and use your bread maker simply as an oven. Mix the ingredients before popping them into the bread maker and you’ll usually need to add baking powder or another raising agent – besides yeast – to the mixture to ensure your cake rises. Cooking times vary according to the type of rice, but generally, it will take at least 15-18 minutes. Once ready, the rice should be removed from the heat and stirred with a knob of cold butter and parmesan cheese. This is considered the ‘ mantecatura’ phase, an Italian word referring to the process of ‘ creaming’ butter and cheese with the risotto in this case. How to prepare risotto ahead of time Combined with a slow cooker function, these risotto makers can also be adapted for other uses such as soups or other slow cooker recipes. Top 3 Best Risotto Cookers

Notable features are the sauté/sear and risotto modes. The former offers a high heat for searing meat or sautéing base ingredients such as onions, garlic and spices. Interestingly the instructions suggest it’s safe to use from age 8, making it a safer alternative to the hob for budding chefs.It has 25 programmes, including baking, frying pressure cooking and steaming plus a keep warm button does exactly what it says. It also comes with a steaming basket, trivet and recipe book featuring dishes as varied beef curry, apple and yoghurt cake and risotto.

This premium one-pot cooker saves on time and washing up. Superb, if you don’t mind the hefty price tag.

How to toast the rice for risotto

The first fundamental step in making risotto is toasting the rice, which serves to make the grain more compact to prevent it from breaking as it cooks. Heat a large saucepan and pour in all the rice. Continue stirring the rice with a wooden spoon and toast it for a few minutes. You’ll know it’s ready by touching it with your fingers and smelling it; the rice must be very hot and give off the scent of the grain. You can also toast the risotto with another fat like a sautéed onion (or shallot) and butter (or oil). Once toasted, add a glass of wine and let it evaporate for extra flavor. How to make risotto: cooking and ‘ mantecatura’ Even the simplest of microwave rice cookers will cook grains such as quinoa and sometimes pasta as well as rice. In electric models, look out for extra cooking settings. These may include ones for specialist rice, including risotto, brown and wild, porridge, pasta, yoghurt and even cake! Rice cookers that are essentially multi-cookers will have all this. Plus 'slow' and 'fast' cook functions. You can use your bread maker as a rice cooker: add rice and water to the bread pan on the “Bake” or “Cake” setting and cook for about an hour. But more excitingly, you can also prepare rice pudding or even a risotto with the Jam setting. Although it’s called a rice cooker, this also has a facility for steaming, and it can cook a simple risotto, too. You can’t cook less than three cups of rice so it’s probably not a good choice for those on their own. Unless you have freezer space for Tupperware-filled cooked rice. It is, however, good for families or dinner parties. It will prepare up to 1200g of uncooked rice, which provides, on average 18-20 portions.